Originally, of course, all writing was done by hand.

The first ever person to patent a typewriter was Henry Mill. His idea is entered in the records in the British Patent Office in 1714. Unfortunately Henry Mill never got around to manufacturing his machine due to impatience with manufacturing it.

More types of typewriters were invented after this, but were huge and heavy, some resembling the size of a piano, and took actually longer to use than handwriting itself, which obviously defeated the object!

The first person to actually manufacture the first practical typewriter was Christopher Scholes, who patented his second model in 1868 (this machine finally exceeding the speed of handwriting), along with the help of S.W. Soule and G. Glidden.

Scholes sold the rights of the typewriter over to Densmore, and Densmore improved the typewriter and its usability by using Philo Remington to market the machine. It was not an instant success however. The first Scholes and Glidden typewriter was offered for sale in 1873. It was not until a few years later that Remington’s engineers worked on the device and improved it, that it became a success and sales rocketed. The first typewriter sold for $125. About 5000 were sold in the next four years and about 6 different models evolved in that time due to improvements. On some machines the return (carriage return) could be used by a foot pedal.

The keyboard then was designed in a way that the most commonly used letters were next to each other and thus, It was found that the keys jammed easily. A business associates, James Densmore suggested separating the most commonly used keys away from each other to slow down typing, and this is how we got today’s keyboard arrangement, the QWERTY (the first six letters on the keyboard).

Typewriters became common in offices in the late 1880s. Initially the typewriter could only produce capital letters but it later was later modified with upper and lower case letters. A typewriter has (and still does on modern typewriters) a carriage containing a large roller which is used to return, (hence the name carriage return) and a small roller to hold the paper in place. If you made a mistake it required a lot of rubbing out (including the carbon copies), or starting all over again.

Tippex was not invented until the 1950s and even then it was a powdery paper type of substance (not like the fluid we have now). But before you used it you had to still had to tub out the mistake on all of the carbon copies first. And then it still made a bit of a mess, so accuracy was paramount.

In the 1970’s a Remington was still used and most students had to complete an RSA Certificate of competence in typing. This took a lot of time and care and if an error was made Tippex was used to correct errors. In the 1980s computers became more and more advanced and of course today we have the modern computer (thank goodness for that)!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Catherine_Bennett

Nast was America’s most influential political cartoonist from the Civil War to about the turn of the last century. Nast, a staunch Republican, used the jackass to portray what he thought were the Democrats: hardheaded, and downright stubborn. Surely the Democrats didn’t like it, but the symbol stuck, and they made the best of it. They kept the symbol, but called it a donkey, not an ass.

In 1874 and a few weeks before the election, Nast drew a cartoon of a rogue elephant for Harper’s Magazine. The rogue elephant represented the Republican voters, who he felt were being panicked by the Democrats. Apparently, some Democrats were spreading fears of the then running Republican president Ulysses S. Grant, who had been thinking of running for a 3^rd term. At the time, the system of a two term presidency, set by George Washington, and a tradition in Washington since, was a code that no one should violate. If you did violate it, you were stigmatized and considered ,or condemned as someone seeking an undemocratic grab of imperial power. I find it amusing that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, was the first and only one to violate that code in the 30’s & 40’s. Nast’s rogue elephant was a rebuke at Harper’s Magazine’s editor James Gorden Benett who in a series of articles had criticized Grant’s thoughts of running for a 3^rd term.

Well, the Republicans kept the elephant as their symbol, after all, they liked to be thought of as tough, hoofed mammals having very thick skin, so the the elephant stuck. For the record, Nast is also responsible for shaping our image of Santa Claus. He created the face of the Santa Claus we’ve all come to know and love. And if you can believe it, Van Gogh was influenced by this cartoonist. It is said that Van Gogh had a collection of Nast illustrations in a bound volume which he referred to from time to time.

The issues of the late 1800’s have long gone, but the donkey and elephant are still here, and remain our political reference point whenever we see them.

References: The Greatest Stories Never Told, harpweek.com

Ooh, just the thought of that makes me cringe! Horace Wells takes his wife out on a date on December 10, 1844. Horace was a dentist who more than likely had been using the crude methods of the day when he removed teeth. The show he and his wife were going to see was going to be performed by a “Professor” Gardner Quincy Colton. Part of the act was having volunteers from the audience inhale laughing gas. And we all know what happens when you inhale laughing gas. You basically act drunk, have uncontrollable laughter, and say and do stupid things. This amused the audience. On this night, one of the participants ran into the audience chasing an imaginary enemy. When he returned to his seat, he realized he had a lacerated leg, but didn’t start to feel pain until the effects of the gas wore off.

Horace immediately thought how this laughing gas could be used in dentistry. He asked the Professor to come to his practice so they could perform a tooth extraction using nitrous oxide (laughing gas). Horace had a patient who had a troublesome tooth and used him as the guinea pig. The professor administered enough gas to render the poor soul unconscious. One of Horace’s assistants removed the tooth successfully without any pain to the patient. After this success the professor and Horace become partners and collaborate to perform pain-free operations on several patients. They used a crude method to administer the gas, but it worked, and it appeared complication-free.

After about a dozen operations Horace’s assistant, William Morton urges him to go public with it. Reluctantly he agrees to give a lecture and demonstration at Massachusetts General Hospital. But unfortunately, it was a major flop. When the gas was administered to the patient, they had removed the gasbag too soon. The patient was in a twilight sleep, but not completely unconscious when his tooth was extracted. The patient testified that he felt pain, although not as bad as when he wasn’t given any anesthetic. He couldn’t repeat the demonstration as there were no other patients present. The doctors brushed him off, and considered the demonstration a “humbug affair.” They booed him out the lecture hall. Embarrassed and defeated he returned home and sold his practice. He became even more morose when he finds out his assistant, Morton had developed an ether-based anesthesia and was using it in hospitals with great success.

He lived in France for a while, but couldn’t revived his career. He moved back to the states and started to experiment with chloroform which made him increasingly unhinged. He attacks two prostitutes with sulfuric acid and is sent to prison, where he commits suicide. He cut a large artery in his leg, after inhaling chloroform to stop the pain. He used his anesthesia research to help him commit his own painless death.

How did it become the South’s anthem? On the inauguration of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States, “Dixie” was played, and he must’ve liked the tune so much because it became the marching song for the Confederate army. This tune spread like wildfire across the south and soon everyone was whistling “Dixie.”

The damned Yankee, Emmett, was aghast because he was a staunch Union supporter. He is quoted as saying, “If I’d known to what use they were going to put my song, I’ll be damned if I’d have written it!” Hum…a damned Yankee he truly was.

I think Lincoln may have had a beef with this because the day after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, a band outside the White House was asked to play the famous “Dixie.” And Lincoln is quoted as saying, “I have always thought Dixie one of the best tunes I ever heard.” He continues, “Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but we have fairly captured it.”  The song continued its popularity for quite a while, in fact, at age 80 Emmett made a farewell tour and sang the song to standing ovations all across the country.

Source, The Greatest Stories Never Told